Should we dump the penny?

'A penny saved isn’t really a penny earned anymore — in fact, it will probably just sit gathering dust in a jar while taxpayers shell out millions to produce new ones.

That’s one of the arguments put forward by politicians who met Wednesday to hash out the costs and benefits of abolishing the copper coin altogether as inflation reduces its value and consumers increasingly use debit or credit cards or do their shopping online.

“It’s not the most pressing financial issue facing the nation, but it’s a cost-saving measure that’s a major irritant to both business and consumers,” said Pat Martin, an NDP MP from Winnipeg who tabled a bill in 2008 proposing the elimination of the penny.

“Like in a game of pool, you pick your easy ones first and this is a slam dunk in terms of saving money and reducing productivity loss in the private sector.”'

What do you think? Should we get rid of the penny or not?

Comments

[BULLHST]

LOL @ using Urban Dictionary as a source.

[Bronwyn]

does anyone know what happens to pennies in a country where it has been eliminated? Does the mint buy them back? are they then degraded to junk metal that can be melted?

[Kimberly]

If it costs more to make it than it is actually worth, and we don't really need it then get rid of it.
On the flip side...it forces the kids today to use their brain when counting change, which seems to be a bit of a difficulty these days.

[GIVE ME LIBERTY]

You van bet that this will cause people in high positions to "round up" to the nearest 5 cents. It seems small when you're dealing with one case... But when you've got a million clients, this looks like a great policy don't it. Gotta love our masters catering to their banking cartel buddies once again.

[Rob J.]

WRCU2 is correct. Elimination of the penny is the dumb remedy to the actual problem of Canadians' wealth being stolen through inflation. That is like fixing a worrisome noise your car is making by turning up the radio. What should be done is to return to the gold standard with a 'dollar' bank of Canada note being backed by an ounce of silver and readily and freely convertible at any bank which operates in Canada. This would prevent the government of Canada from stealing from the people by having more paper currency printed up from nowhere. With more money floating around competing for a finite supply of goods, prices rise which reduces the purchasing power of money Canadians earned through their honest labour by the same proportion that the currency is inflated. Ex: gov't doubles currency -> prices quickly double -> each holder of $CAN has instantly had half his/her wealth stolen.
Fiat currency is a tool to strip away our wealth and impoverish us in the long run. If the previous sentence means nothing to you, just go on about your business, everything is fine and there is nothing to see here.

[ernest]

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=speculater
my aren't we get'n a little too serious? Hope your present school system in Hamilton ain't cutting just passing the kiddys off to the next grade for free.

[Gene Simmons]

Okay, Stormin, we understand that. But why take Ernest down 14 notches with nasty insults? Why didn't ya just say that in the first place?

[Stormin norman]

Just sayin ... if there's 20 posts on the question and a thousand who voted in the poll -- how does that add up to a question that "the community" isn't interested in?

[Tara]

just think if they scrap the penny how many people this will affect. The government will then say well the HST is 13% which brings everything to an odd number so lets just round it up to 15%.
I agree with putting value back into the penny, to some this little coin is useless with no value but to others it's a teaching tool with heritage.
I say we should keep the penny, this is just another way for the government to make money, think about it if they stop the production of the penny where will that extra money go?
All the money that would have been used to make the penny will now line the pockets of the politicians. This is just another way for the government to stomp all over Canadians.

[WRCU2]

Jamie makes a good point, the modern (2000-present) one-cent piece is 94% steel, 1.5% nickel and 4.5% copper-plated zinc. It is a worthless hunk of metal in a shiny wrapper, just like all (modern) Canadian coins which have no intrinsic value, they are merely tokens of trade and a means to make small change.

Peter Swire CMA makes another good point about a currency "roll-back" or more specifically the deliberate deflation of our dollar. He suggests we knock the wind out of IT and I believe this would make cents, worth more, EH Jamie?

Unfortunately, we are leaving all the old ways of doing business in the dust because the rich IT seems have an insatiable lust. They want all the gold and silver in the whole world wide so they can control the value of money and increase the great divide between those wealthy pork-belly accounts and us penny-pincher's with piggy-banks and good sense there inside.

The penny is doomed, IT is worth so little and we should let IT die? Henny Penny didn't understand why, she was pound foolish and not so penny wise. She borrowed and spent and then borrowed some more and the change she was lent she dropped onto the floor. Chicken Little bent by and picked IT up and all day long she had good luck. So when the sky is falling and a penny wastes away there is a greater need than ever, to save for that rainy day.

Shine like a new penny! Keep your gold and silver folks and those pretty puny's too, we're running out of lucky coin to bank-roll between me and you.

[Gene Simmons]

Hey, I thought we were cutting back on the personal attacks?? On top of that, Ernest was criticizing his OWN grammar so I guess his attackers didn't even read what he said before jumping on him. And what does the glass houses parable have to do with pennies OR grammar??

Whew...and it's early in the day yet...

[Tim]

People keep thinking something ending in , say .12 will now be .15.

In Australia, They round DOWN and UP - something ending in .12 will be .10 and something ending with .13 will be .15.

It really does balance out as per the stats above, which also state will gain or lose.

[storminnorman]

ernest, you might want to think twice before commenting on grammar (as opposed to your grammer) and spelling.

If you actually wrote
'to whom the community to which it supposedly serves'
and you can't spell Speculator, which you obviously can't, you should try in your minimal mind to remember the parable about glass houses.

Too sophisticated for you? Figures.

[Peter Swire CMA]

Interesting how we seem to go the route of accepting inflation and relegate meaningless coin to a jar.

Has anyone objectively considered rolling back our currency like they do in third world countries by dropping a zero?

Imagine giving the penny some value back by cutting the minimum wate to 90 cents per hour! Gas would only be 9.5 cents per litre. I am old enough to remember when it was that price! Mind you, your mortgage would fall by 90% and so would your RSP's. Your purchasing power would not change.

Strangely enough, a roll back is more common than you think. The penny level Italian Lira was replaced with a pricey Euro for example.

[ernest]

grade 12 i said maw. I can spell "question"!

[maw]

ernest get a life. Lots of people are interested in the penny queestion. If you are not, why not stay home and shut up?

[mark]

dump the penny and the nickle, simplify the system

[ernest]

I wonder if the Hamilton Speculater will ever focus on issues on this have your say blog that actually matter to whom the community to which it supposedly serves.Hope my grammer was correct i only got my grade 12

[Tim]

Yes, get rid of the penny.

For those that don't understand how it works after wards - in Australia they eliminated 1 and 2 cent coins and statistics show:

95% of shopkeepers will gain or lose no more than 88 cents in 1000 transactions. Only 1.15% of shopkeepers (one in 87) will lose more than $1 in 1000 transactions, and 0.06% (four in 10,000) will lose more than $1.50. These results are found using the "Central Limit Theorem", a key result in probability.

[Jamie]

Pennies haven't been made from copper since the mid 90's. They are copper plated! If the production cost is higher than the value then it would make 'cents' (lol) to get rid of them.

[steve sheen]

Everything will change as it will with the hst,just higher cost,something costing say 4.12 cent will be 4.15 and so on and so on,and as the saying goes,pennies add up.

[ernest]

That'll be $1.52.Thank you.

[Gene Simmons]

BTW...I meant "apocalyptic", not apathetic. What can I say, I was up all night cruising the streets of LA with Carrot Top.

[Tara]

they say they wanna scrap the the penny cause its worthless..... everyday people are being tossed in jail for stealing copper so obviously it isn't that worthless is it.
I personally enjoy the pennies in my change and unlike the rich i don't debit everything and i don't have credit cards. The people who are very poverty stricken will feel this the worst as with the saying every penny counts well it sure does.
I save all my pennies and have told my 6yr old to save so he can open a bank account with them when he is 10.
The penny has so much history.

[Peter Michael]

No need to stop at the penny, stop nickeling and diming too!

I'd like to say drop everything below the loonie but dumping the nickel and dime, along with the penny, would be a good start at this time.

[Kodi O.]

I think that this is a coin toss (lol).

On one hand, eliminating the penny would save money and metals needed in everyday life. If these statistics are correct, than maybe the penny's more than it's worth.

On the other hand, there was an article about lowering the cost of the dollar. Trading will be more challenging to countries that have higher GP's than us (France-Euros ($1.35=$1 Canadian). Eliminating the penny will perhaps lower our GP further.

Furthermore, what will happen if we do decide we need penny's? Will we use them, none the less, like Canadian Tire money- heard of, but hardly used? Or will the penny not count, like in the vending machine?

This may not seem like a big deal, but the littlest things can change the world as we know it.

[Gene Simmons]

Scenario: it's the year 2012. You go into a store...your purchase comes to $9.17...but since the penny was abolished in an eerie, apathetic,Fahrenheit 451 sort of way back in '10, you can only give the cashier $9.15. Now, this goes on all day...the poor business is going to be losing big money. Oh well, as the long as the politicians, celebrities and multi-million dollar corporations are making the big bucks, who cares, right?

[chris]

I understand the cost saving of not producing the penny...question? How do the NDP/Tories/Liberals propose all our goods equal the nickle (.95 cents, 00 cents etc.) raise taxes enough so they get more money?

Think not....

Let's see...we get the HST...now they will increase that...

How about going through all the unnecessary expenditures that these politicians have to appease all the special interest groups, plus themselves and find the savings there first before they come back to us once again....

All I see coming from from this, as you can tell, is "SCREW the TAXPAYER"..this seems to be the cry from every level of government and politician.